The setting is on UofT Campus, near midnight…

As I was getting a bit restless after having some 10pm coffee and having had stared at my computer for at least 10 hours, it was time for a late night walk – to enjoy the night, think a little, and just enjoy the city while it was not covered with humidity and pollution. Walking didn’t seem very efficient so I grabbed my bike and ventured off to the campus. It was really nice to just bike around while no one was around. I remembered the summer after second year when I ended up spending most of it working in Toronto, while living on campus. It was then when I too had time for these walks.

Eventually, as I was biking, I ended up in the alley in between of Lash Miller and McLennan Labs. There on the ground there was a big blue woman’s bag, and a textbook (I should’ve taken a picture!). The whole picture seemed a little suspicious to me, so I called the campus police who promptly arrive to check out the belongings. The guys were really friendly and equally surprised to find a random bag on the ground. As we chatted they found that the wallet inside was still full of money and the cellphone wasn’t stolen. But if the bag wasn’t stolen, what was going on?

Just when we were about to leave, somebody ran from around the corner! No, it wasn’t a robber. It was a little asian girl, dressed in a blouse and a skirt, wearing some sort of sandals, and looking a lot like a typical frosh, was running towards us. It turned out that she had a mental breakdown earlier that night and therefore she just dropped her bag and went for a run around campus. I don’t remember how the conversation went from there on, except for the police wondering if she actually understood that her bag with house keys, cell phone, a purse full of money could had been easily stolen. She didn’t seem to follow their logic.

I don’t want to be mean or stereotype, and perhaps the girl was so stressed out that indeed she didn’t realize what she was doing, but perhaps it’s just little girls with Gucci bags full of money  that aren’t used to understanding these things, maybe both.

On a slightly related note, I really want to share this picture – “Parenting Fails”. It amazes me that some parents would try to j-walk with a toddler when a traffic light is a minute away.